Roy Buchanan — Rig Network

Buchanan's primary guitar — a 1953 Telecaster he reportedly found at a pawn shop for $60. He called it "Nancy". The vintage Telecaster's bright, trebly single-coil character combined with Buchanan's technique produced sounds that no other guitarist had extracted from the instrument before or since.

Unique to this artist in the database

Buchanan's primary amp for most of his career — the Twin Reverb near-cranked provides the power-tube saturation that gives his lead tone its singing, compressed quality. At lower volumes the Twin Reverb is too clean; Buchanan needed volume to bring out the amp's character.

Earlier in his career, Buchanan used the Bassman for its warm, slightly broken clean tone. The Bassman is less loud than the Twin Reverb, making power-stage saturation accessible at lower stage volumes.

Buchanan's volume pedal was central to his technique — used for violin-style swells where the note is picked with the volume at zero, then swelled up immediately to produce a note with no attack transient. This technique, which Buchanan used more extensively than almost any other guitarist of his era, requires a volume pedal rather than a guitar volume knob for smooth, reliable control.

Unique to this artist in the database